by Hiatt, Bill
I don’t want you thinking either one of them was stupid. Actually, they were both pretty sharp. What can I say? A little strategically planned sleep here, a little memory erasure there, a bit of illusion somewhere else, and I could keep them from noticing anything unusual. I didn’t like doing that kind of thing, but in the last four years that pattern had become so automatic I didn’t really think about it most of the time; I did it almost reflexively.
In my defense I couldn’t tell them when they were worried about my sanity, and I had since gotten the hint (from the rulers of Annwn, delivered through Nurse Florence) that I must not tell anybody else about myself. In other words, I couldn’t really tell them now, even if I wanted to. For better or worse, I had to settle for a well-crafted lie that at least kept them happy and out of harm’s way—I hoped. I couldn’t restrain a slight shudder, thinking about how much danger they would be in if Morgan figured out I was trying to play her.
“Tal, are you cold?” asked Mom in a concerned tone. “You’re shivering.”
“No, I’m fine, Mom,” I said, making a mental note to be extra careful for a while. Maybe it was just maternal instinct, but she really did have an uncanny way of sensing when something was wrong. She had seemed to sense danger if I went to Carrie Winn’s Halloween party, where I could very well have died, and now…”
I looked at her casually, trying to conceal the fact that I was studying her. She definitely looked better rested than she had in the bad old days of October, and really most of the past four years. She almost looked younger. Her brown hair was still liberally sprinkled with gray, but the absence of the perpetually worried expression helped smooth out some of those wrinkles, and she definitely looked less saggy. However, her blue eyes still betrayed a slight concern as she looked back at me across the table.
I tried to avoid reading people’s minds unless in cases of emergency, and I did not break that rule this time, but there was something different about Mom, something I couldn’t quite figure out. Then the truth hit me, and I jumped slightly despite myself.
I could feel psychic energy coming from her.
Oh, don’t get me wrong; it wasn’t much, a mere whisper compared to the shout that my power could create. Still, it was more than the average person would broadcast, and it could pose problems later because it would make her at least marginally more resistant to my mental manipulations.
“Tal, you look as if you’ve seen a ghost!” said Mom, reacting to my sudden movement.
“No, I just remembered I still have reading to do for English. I’d better get to it. May I be excused?”
Mom was clearly still worried, but Dad intervened at that point. “Sure! Get the homework done. You’ve had too many late nights recently as it is.” Then he shot Mom a leave-the-boy-alone; you’re-worrying-about-nothing expression. She nodded vaguely at both of us, suddenly preoccupied. Dad winked at me and smiled. He didn’t look as obviously younger as Mom, but he too was clearly better rested. I would have to keep it that way.
I got upstairs quickly and closed the door quietly but firmly. Then, instead of doing English homework, which I had actually squeezed in earlier, right before soccer practice, I planned. Nurse Florence and I had our work cut out for us. We needed protective spells for ourselves, our families, hell, maybe the whole town. I had no illusions about really being able to do a protective spell that covered that wide an area, but it was worth thinking about who or what Morgan might lash out at when she discovered she had been tricked.
After a while, though, I realized I was just covering the same ground over and over again. I undressed and slipped into bed, turned the lights out, and fell asleep puzzling over Stan’s shirt. Yeah, I had been tired when I mended it, but still, I had never had one of my spells deteriorate like that before. It did not occur to me until much later to wonder whether the spell I had cast in the hospital room to keep anyone from eavesdropping might have reacted in the same way…
That night I had an unusually vivid dream in which I was naked with Carla in her hospital bed. Yeah, it was one of those dreams, so I will spare you the details. In the beginning I was just holding her anyway; she was every bit as comatose as she was in real life. Later, though, she was conscious and extremely eager to take our “relationship,” or whatever it was in real life, to the next level. Hell, to take it up several levels.
I knew it was only dream sex, but it felt more real somehow than any of the intimacies I could remember from my previous lives. To say my whole body was on fire sounds trite, but that’s the closest I could come to it. We were both on fire, burning as one flame, giving ourselves to each other unreservedly.
Then I realized that the woman in my arms, despite making love to me as if we had both been created for the purpose of making love with each other, was not Carla. She looked like her superficially, but when I looked into her eyes, someone else was looking back.
Alcina.
I woke up hoping I hadn’t screamed aloud, because I think I did scream in the dream. I listened, but I didn’t hear anything like my parents jumping out of bed to see what was wrong. I looked over at the clock. It was three in the morning, but I knew I wasn’t getting any more sleep. I would have liked a shower (yeah, a nice cold one!), but I knew that would wake my parents up. I would have liked to play a little music; I hadn’t had much time to practice the harp recently, and playing always relaxed me, but again I could hardly avoid waking up my parents in such a situation, so I steeled myself to wait for morning.
I did get up once to study myself in my bathroom mirror. (You’ve done it yourself, so don’t smirk.) I knew the timing was a little odd, but I was having a hard time getting Alcina out of my mind. Even though that encounter had only been in a dream, it did get me to thinking. Ceridwen had tried to lure me to bed. Carla, though the memory hurt now like trying to crawl through barbed wire, had very much wanted to bed me. Morgan had just tried to lure me to bed. Granted, that last one was probably strategy, though Morgan had complimented my looks when she met me for the first time (in this life) in Annwn on Founders’ Day. And Ceridwen’s attempted seduction really didn’t have anything to do with her overall strategy; if anything, her attempt ended up undermining her whole plan. It got me to ask the question that most popular guys ask at some point: was I really that hot? (Of course, most guys don’t have to contend with interest from supernatural beings who have murderous intentions, but I was trying hard not to think about that aspect of my situation.)
I couldn’t see anything special about my face. I guessed I had a good smile, but even so it was quite the heart melter Dan’s was. My brown hair was pretty much run-of-the-mill it seemed to me, but I did try to keep it decently groomed, which was more than I could say for a lot of the guys at school. As for my body, well, I flexed a little bit and studied myself from different angles. I wasn’t as powerfully built as Dan or Gordy, and certainly not as Shar, though I had been working out a lot and had pretty good definition, certainly better even than two months ago. However, girls seemed to like tans, and my skin was pretty pale compared to, well…pretty much any of my friends except Stan. I had always had two settings: pale and burned. I guessed it was the Celtic ancestry. I just never tanned. Dan and Gordy both had nice tans, and Carlos and Shar were both naturally darker. I wasn’t insecure enough to think I was ugly, but, at least as far as looks were concerned, it didn’t seem to me that I stood out that much.
And yet there was something going on. When I started emerging from my loner phase in late summer and early fall, I had certainly generated interest, even from high-status females like cheerleaders. At first I had deflected that interest because I still secretly loved Eva. (She was my childhood sweetheart, but now she was Dan’s girlfriend—you can see why I was keeping those feelings pretty much to myself!) More recently, everyone understood that I was devoted to Carla, and I didn’t even need to deflect. Nonetheless, I didn’t have to read minds to know that interest still existed. Don’t get me wrong; I had no intention of moving on, no
matter what happened to our efforts to revive Carla from her coma, but I wouldn’t have been human, and I certainly wouldn’t have been a guy, if I hadn’t been a little pleased that girls found me desirable. Some day I would take the time to relish that feeling.
Yeah, some day, when I didn’t have to worry about Carla’s body being seized by Alcina, when I didn’t have to worry about Morgan murdering my parents in their beds because I had double-crossed her, when I didn’t have to worry about some other supernatural menace popping up. The last one was perhaps the hardest one to deal with. We might well beat Morgan, but what was to prevent someone else from coming along and making trouble later? Nothing really. Once word got out that Santa Brígida had a powerful caster just waiting to be awakened, Morgan would not be the only one to see some advantage in awakening that caster.
The only way Carla was ever going to be safe was if I could bring her into the same state of balance I had achieved—with her present self in charge, but with access to all of her previous skills and knowledge. Once Carla became the kind of spell caster Alcina evidently had been, she and I together could certainly deter attacks. Until she reached that point, not so much, but if I could get her out of the coma, I had every confidence I could give her that balance. After all, I had succeeded with Stan, hadn’t I?
Well, except that something about his situation was clearly bothering Stan. I sighed and put talking to him on my mental to-do list. If his situation was not as good as I thought, then I needed to know what the problem was, and soon—both for his sake and for Carla’s.
CHAPTER 5: “THEY COME NOT SINGLE SPIES”
I was up slightly before dawn, but I often got up pretty early, so my parents wouldn’t be particularly alarmed. I showered, dressed, and had the house under a protective spell, all in record time. Someone like Morgan could probably break through the protection if she really put her mind to it, but at least not without my knowing about it, and the high school was only a few blocks away if trouble started during the day.
After finishing my magic, I put on my happy face and did convincing small talk for Mom and Dad over breakfast. Having gotten at least a little sleep last night, I had no difficulty selling my “everything is fine” image. Mom seemed a little fidgety, though, and was still putting out weak but discernible psychic energy. That was a good reminder to talk to Nurse Florence when I got the chance. I was sure there was some logical explanation for Mom’s sudden development of powers, but I would worry until I discovered what the explanation was.
“Is there something…different…about the house?” said Mom, looking directly at me. Logically, I would have expected her to look first to my dad. So did he, apparently, since he answered.
“Nothing I can see, hon. What do you think is different?”
Mom suddenly looked embarrassed. “Well, I don’t know really. It just feels different.”
Oh, no! She can feel the protection spell!
At the power level on which she was functioning, she probably shouldn’t be able to feel something environmental like that unless she was actively looking for it. However, at the risk of stating the obvious, magic was not always an exact science.
“I read somewhere that our subconscious is always picking up on little details we aren’t consciously aware of, Mom. Who knows what’s giving you that feeling? There’s nothing to worry about, I’m sure.” I put a little magic into the last sentence, just enough I hoped to dull whatever worry was picking away at her, and she seemed to relax, though I sensed she was not entirely convinced.
I excused myself quickly, grabbed my backpack, walked over to Stan’s house and then walked the rest of the way to school with him. (Yeah, I could have driven, but school was really close, so I usually just walked, and then stopped by after soccer to pick up the car for the drive to Carla’s hospital.)
I automatically checked to make sure Stan was armed. Sure enough, he had remembered his sword, just as I had remembered White Hilt. Naturally, the swords were invisible to others, courtesy of a spell by Nurse Florence. Later I had added a twist that made them invisible to security cameras as well. In a pinch I could even make them go unnoticed by metal detectors, but our school didn’t have metal detectors, so I only added that extra touch when needed. Ironically, the very concealments that made our swords less visible to ordinary people made them more conspicuous to spell casters, but that couldn’t be helped, and anyway, the swords were quite visible enough on their own to those who knew how to look for them.
I probably shouldn’t have worried about an attack this morning. Surely Morgan wouldn’t attack without further negotiations. Still, there was something about walking down my artificially lush, pretentiously built and outrageously under-priced street that still gave me the creeps. Now that I knew that Ceridwen had developed the whole town of Santa Brígida for the sole purpose of luring my parents to settle here so that she could more easily launch her plot against me when the time came, the place seemed less like home and more like an elaborate trap where danger lurked in every shadow.
Yeah, I knew how paranoid that sounded, and Ceridwen was dead anyway, but I still couldn’t make myself comfortable. I would have moved if I had the choice, but my parents really were happy here; I would have to hit them with pretty major magic to get them to move, and using that kind of force would risk injuring their minds. My being uncomfortable certainly didn’t justify that kind of risk. Besides, I wanted to stay close to my warriors now, and I couldn’t very well get all of them to move. The new, complicated situation with Morgan made me glad that I had people on whom I could depend.
Speaking of which, at that point I remembered I needed to talk to Stan about whatever was bothering him. I tried asking, but his response confused me. He looked around as if he expected someone else to be listening. That would make sense if we were talking about Carla’s situation, which I had no intention of doing in an unprotected place, but I couldn’t imagine what he could possibly have to say that would be of interest to Morgan or any other potential threat.
“Tal, there isn’t time, really, and anyway, I don’t want to risk someone else hearing. Let’s wait until later.”
He looked so worried, so haunted really, that I wanted to press him, an impulse strengthened by the fact that later would be a lot later, since after school I had soccer practice, and Stan had wrestling practice. Still, I decided I had better let him tell me in his own way, so I reconciled myself to waiting until evening, or at least until after practice.
We arrived at school without incident. The fact that I thought that reminded me of how on edge, how tense I was. I had been caught by surprise so often recently that I couldn’t help but keep myself ready for potential combat at all times. Still, being in that state constantly could be pretty wearing, as I was reminded throughout the whole school day.
The day seemed to drag unmercifully. I was not usually a clock watcher, but how I watched those hands that day! (Santa Brígida High School was a fairly new facility and could have used digital clocks, but someone evidently thought a more traditional clock would look more at home in the school’s overly ornate Spanish Colonial architecture facade.) Each tick was one step closer to finding out what was bugging Stan, seeing Carla again, putting an end to the Morgan threat once and for all.
Lunch finally came and…nothing. Stan and I practically always had lunch together, and I had been certain he would try to pull me aside for a talk, but he didn’t show up at all. I tried his cell number, but the call went straight to voice mail.
“Everything OK, Tal?” asked Dan.
“Yeah. I just expected to see Stan.”
Gordy, who very much appreciated Stan’s tutoring, was instantly on high alert. “You don’t think anything is wrong, do you?” The others snickered a little at Gordy’s over-protectiveness.
“The only thing wrong here,” said Shar with mock seriousness, “is that this cafeteria never serves Persian food.”
“They might if we had more than one Persian student,” quipped Carlos.
“But if it makes you feel any better, the rumor that they serve Mexican food is greatly exaggerated.” They both laughed at their overly bland enchiladas.
“No, seriously,” persisted Gordy. “Tal, are you sure everything is OK?” His concern was oddly contagious.
“Let me check. I’ll just connect with him and make sure.” We could be fairly open in our conversation when we had lunch together because we usually ate at a small table in the corner, and the guys’ girlfriends understood that this was “guy” time. Eva, Dan’s girlfriend, knew about our… situation, but the others did not, and we needed to keep it that way.
I reached out for Stan’s mind and quickly discovered two things: he was very agitated, and he was in Nurse Florence’s office. If he was that troubled, why didn’t he come to me?
“It’s probably nothing, but he’s with Nurse Florence. I’ll go see what’s going on,” I said as I pushed my chair back and stood, my appetite fading away.
“I’ll come with you,” said Gordy eagerly, but I waved him off.
“I can handle whatever this is, Gordy, and if I can’t, I’ll give you a holler, OK?”
Gordy was clearly not happy, and he seemed about to argue, but, seeing the determined look in my eyes, he sat down reluctantly. If Stan was reluctant to talk to me as it was, bringing Gordy along would only complicate the situation. Not only that, but if I let Gordy tag along, the others might have started to worry, and I would have ended up with all of them following me to Nurse Florence’s office.
I could feel Gordy’s eyes on me the whole way to the cafeteria exit on the other side of the room. I felt like going back and telling him Stan already had one mother and didn’t need another one, but I reminded myself that he did mean well…and I sort of had myself to blame for his over-protectiveness. After all, it was I who had recruited him in the first place, basically as a body guard for Stan before Stan had his own magic sword and considerably more combat training than he had started with. Technically, Gordy no longer had the specific function of protecting Stan, but he had taken the job so seriously he was having a hard time letting go of it.